With the use of new, relatively harder and thinner plastic hose materials, it became important, especially with so-called open-type hose clamps made from galvanized or stainless steel band material, to provide internal clamping surfaces devoid of any step, gap or discontinuity, particularly at the end of the inner overlapped clamping band portion. Additionally, with a tightening device forming a gap under the same, such as, for example, with so-called “Oetiker” ears, it became important in the tightened condition of the clamp to bridge the gap underneath the tightening device by the full band width of the inner clamping band portion to avoid a leakage problem. An effective solution, which proved commercially immensely successful and which has been used in hundreds of millions of clamps, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,012 which, as shown in FIG. 1 of this application and corresponding to FIG. 19 of this patent, includes a male member in the form of a narrow tongue-like extension (61) at the end of the full width inner band portion (11b) adapted to engage through an opening (62) forming a female member that commences in the outer band portion (11a) at the beginning of a step-like portion (67) having a height substantially corresponding to the thickness of the clamping band. In addition to a typical “Oetiker” ear, generally designated by reference numeral (13) which consists of two parallel, outwardly extending leg portions (14 and 15) interconnected by a bridging portion (16) provided with a reinforcing groove or depression (17), this type of prior art clamp (FIG. 1 herein) also shows a mechanical connection consisting of a so-called guide or suspension hook (31) and of two cold-deformed, deep-drawn support hooks (32) adapted to engage in apertures (35) in the outer band portion (11a). The channel (63) adjoining the opening in the step-like portion (67) is formed by cuts whereby the cover (63) is pressed out relative to the remaining lateral band portions (11′). However, the cover (63) can also be omitted by simply cutting off the material forming the opening in the channel so that the tongue-like extension (61) is then freely exposed to the outside as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,348.
The use of a so-called combined guide and support hook, formed by a tab-like member pressed out of the inner band portion is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,499 in which the combined guide and support hook (33) is punched and pressed out within the area of the full band width inner band portion (12) and extends at substantially right angle to the outer surface of the band material.
In connection with so-called earless clamps, two pressed-out tool-engaging tab-like members (32) with tool-engaging surfaces (33) are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,278. This patent additionally shows in FIGS. 5 and 6 thereof two tab-like members (130) in substitution of the tool-engaging embossment (30) illustrated in FIGS. 1 through 3 of this patent.
The use of one or more tab-like members pressed-out of the inner band portion and engaging in one or more guide slots to guide overlapping band portions is known as such from U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,339,496 and 5,544,392. However, these tab-like members as disclosed in the prior art are pressed-out within the center area of the full width inner band portion.
In all of the aforementioned prior art hose clamps, the tongue-like portions are realized by simply cutting off lateral band material on both sides whereby these cutaway lateral band portions thus remain unused and are simply wasted.